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The word comes from the Greekpaidophilia (παιδοφιλία)—pais (παις, "child") and philia (φιλία, "love, friendship"). Paidophilia was coined by Greek poets either as a substitute for "paiderastia" (pederasty)[2], or vice versa.[3]

the sexual interest is toward children, either prepubescent or at the beginning of puberty

the sexual interest is the primary one, that is, exclusively or mainly toward children

the sexual interest remains over time

Strictly speaking, this definition would include many adolescents and prepubescents, for whom such an interest might be normal; thus, some experts add the criterion that the interest be toward children at least five years younger than the subject. See entry for sexologist Dr. John Money.

Krafft-Ebing also categorized child molesters into three types:

a.) pedophile,

b.) surrogate (that is, the child is regarded as a surrogate object for a preferred, non-available adult object)

c.) sadistic.

Other researchers used their own terms for the Krafft-Ebing categories:

Use of the term pedophile to describe all child sexual offenders is seen as problematic by some people,[13][14][15] especially when viewed from a medical standpoint, as the majority of sex crimes against children are perpetrated by situational offenders rather than people sexually preferring prepubertal children.[16][17][18][19] Nevertheless, some researchers, such as Howard E. Barbaree,[20] have endorsed the use of actions as a sole criterion for the diagnosis of pedophilia as a means of taxonomic simplification, rebuking the American Psychiatric Association's standards as "unsatisfactory".

Some individuals,[21][22] such as Dr. Fred S. Berlin,[23][24] assert sexual attraction to children to be a sexual orientation in itself. Berlins asserts, "I think it can be both a disorder and an orientation."[25] Dan Markussen, spokesman for Danish Pedophile Association, argues that "sexual orientation is defined as a lifelong attraction, which pedophilia obviously is."[25]

Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger).

The person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.

The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A.

Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12 or 13-year-old.

The actual boundaries between childhood and adolescence may vary in individual cases and are difficult to define in rigid terms of age. The World Health Organization, for instance, defines adolescence as the period of life between 10 and 19 years of age,[28] though it is most often defined as the period of life between the ages of 13 and 18.

The APA diagnostic criteria do not require actual sexual activity with a child. The diagnosis can therefore be made based on the presence of fantasies or sexual urges alone, provided the subject meets the remaining criteria.

The extent to which pedophilia occurs is not known with any certainty. Some studies have concluded that at least a quarter of all adult men may have some feelings of sexual arousal in connection with children.[29] Freund et al. (1972) remarked that "with males who have no deviant object preferences, clearly positive sexual reactions occur to [nude] 6- to 8-year old female children."[30]

In 1989 Briere and Runtz conducted a study on 193 male undergraduate students concerning pedophilia. Of the sample, 21% acknowledged sexual attraction to some small children; 9% reported sexual fantasies involving children; 5% admitted masturbating to these fantasies; and 7% conceded some probability of actually having sex with a child if they could avoid detection and punishment. These sexual interests were associated with negative early sexual experiences, masturbation to pornography, self-reported likelihood of raping a woman, frequent sex partners, and attitudes supportive of sexual dominance over women. The authors also noted that "given the probable social undesirability of such admissions, [one could] hypothesize that the actual rates ... were even higher."[31]

A study by Hall et al. of Kent State University found that, of their sample of 80 adult male volunteers, 20% reported some attraction to prepubescent girls and 26.25 % exhibited sexual arousal to heterosexual pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult stimuli.[32]

A perpetrator of child sexual abuse is, despite all medical definitions, commonly assumed to be a pedophile, and referred to as such; however, there may be other motivations for the crime[20] (such as stress, marital problems, or the unavailability of an adult partner),[33] much as adult rape can have non-sexual reasons. Thus, child sexual abuse alone may or may not be an indicator that its perpetrator is a pedophile; most perpetrators of it are in fact not primarily interested in children.[34]

Those who have committed sex crimes against children, but do not meet the normal diagnosis criteria for pedophilia, are referred to as situational, opportunistic, or regressed offenders, whereas offenders primarily attracted toward children are called structured, preferential, or fixated pedophiles, as their orientation is fixed by the structure of their personality. It is estimated that only 2 to 10 percent of child sexual abuse perpetrators meet the regular criteria for pedophilia. (Kinsey-Report, Lautmann, Brongersma, Groth).

As noted by Abel, Mittleman, and Becker[35] (1985) and Ward et al. (1995), there are generally large distinctions between the two types of offenders' characteristics. Situational offenders tend to offend at times of stress; have a later onset of offending; have fewer, often familial victims; and have a general preference for adult partners. Pedophilic offenders, however, often start offending at an early age; often have a large number of victims who are frequently extrafamilial; are more inwardly driven to offend; and have values or beliefs that strongly support an offense lifestyle.

Most cases of father-daughter incest are believed to involve fathers who are situational offenders, rather than pedophiles.[36] Attempts have been made to use "profiling" to identify pedophiles, however, these methods have come under sharp criticism for making claims that are far in excess of what the evidence supports.[37]

A number of proposed treatment techniques for pedophilia have been developed. Many regard pedophilia as highly resistant to psychological interference and have dismissed as ineffective most "reparative strategies."[38] Others, such as Dr. Fred Berlin, believe pedophilia can "indeed be successfully treated," if only the medical community would give it more attention.[23] The reported success rate of modern "reparative" treatment on pedophiles is very low.[38]

Anti-androgenic medications such as Depo Provera may be used to lower testosterone levels, and are often used in conjunction with the non-medical approaches above. This is commonly referred to as "chemical castration."

Other programs induce an association of illegal behavior with pain by means of the more controversial aversion therapy, in which the pedophile is given an electric shock while fantasizing.[39] A study by the Council on Scientific Affairs found that the success rate of aversion therapy was parallel to that of homosexual reparative therapy.[40] This method is rarely used on pedophiles who have not offended.

Convicted sex offenders, including many pedophiles and homosexuals, have been treated by the psychosurgical procedure commonly known as lobotomization. Psychosurgery has long been controversial, particularly the historical use of surgical intervention on homosexuals given that homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness by the psychiatric community (see for instance Rieber et al. 1976;[41] Sigusch 1977;[42] Rieber & Sigusch 1979;[43] Schorsch & Schmidt 1979)[44]

Thalamotomy is an alternative surgical treatment of sex offenders in practice since the problems with leucotomy have been commonly known (see Greist 1990;[45] Diering & Bell 1991;[46] Hay & Sachdev 1992;[47] Rappaport 1992;[48] de la Porte 1993;[49] Poynton 1993;[50] Bridges et al. 1994;[51] Cummings et al. 1995)[52] and is increasingly advertised as an "effective therapy" for sex offenders (as well as for some children suffering from symptoms of child sexual abuse, since the 1980s (see for instance Andy 1970;[53] Bradford 1988a;[54] Wyre & Swift 1991;[55] Abel et al. 1992;[56] Bridges et al. 1994;[51] Cummings et al. 1995).[52] As and Curfman have noted, however, given the availability of psychopharmacological treatment options, psychosurgical interventions are not likely to be employed given their extreme side effects and irreversible nature. See the same article for an in depth review of treatment options and diagnostic criteria.
Additionally Reid 2002 writes that neurosurgery for sex offenders is "essentially unavailable" in the United States and that data on its use is sparse.[57]

Criticisms of therapies for pedophiles as well as theoretical models of no potential for their therapy mostly stem from the finding of some studies that pedophiles exhibit no clinically pathological traits other than the direction of their sexual preference, a fact that is very rare among all other classified paraphilias and mental illnesses[58] where the pathological aetiological characteristics causing deviant behavior are commonly subject to therapy. As these pathological aetiological characteristics cannot be evidenced in pedophiles, common therapy models fail on them.

Vogt 2006[58] states that even on an international scale only 2 scientific studies have ever been made on distinctly pathological mental characteristics of pedophiles before 2006 that were methodologically correct, naming these as Bernard 1982;[59] Wilson & Cox 1983.[60] Vogt 2006 re-confirmed identical results as Bernard 1982; Wilson & Cox 1983. No pathological characteristics could be found for pedophiles other than the direction of their sexual preference which all three studies explicitly suggest to be up for debate as not pathological especially in light of their findings. The only significant deviance from the norm other than sexual preference that could be found by all three studies was higher mean level of education of pedophiles compared to the average population, while all three studies also opt strongly for distinguishing between clinical and forensic studies made of individuals mostly stigmatized, often traumatized by their current surroundings, and non-clinical, non-forensic studies.

These conclusions are in conflict with those of other researchers, who have found that pedophiles exhibit "many psychiatric features beyond deviant sexual desire, including high rates of comorbid axis I disorders (affective disorders, substance use disorders, impulse control disorders, other paraphilias) as well as severe axis II psychopathology (especially antisocial and Cluster C personality disorders)."[61] Beyond his criticism of clinical and forensic studies, Vogt 2006 replies to this that many, if not most studies diagnose pedophilia merely on the grounds of offenses instead of going through the effort of distinguishing the three categories of offenders via psychological examination and analysis.[58]

Scientists supporting the declassification of pedophilia as paraphilia and mental illness due to the findings of the first two studies include Howitt 1998a;[62] Green 2002;[63] Ng 2002;[64] Fiedler 2004.[65]

Also Langevin 1983[66] and Okami & Goldberg 1992[67]; ("consistent" findings with Langevin 1983) found no pathological characteristics in pedophiles other than their sexual preference and that "None of the commonly held hypotheses were supported." The most likely reason why these two studies were rejected by Vogt 2006 as methodologically incorrect is that they relied upon clinical and/or forensic data.

Ephebophilia, also known as hebephilia, is the condition of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to adolescents. These terms are used in contrast with pedophilia; however pedophilia is sometimes used more broadly in a non-medical sense to describe both ephebophilia and attraction to younger children; in effect, any person younger than the legal age of consent. Ephebophilia does not have broad academic acceptance as constituting a paraphilia.

Pederasty has historically been given sharply different meanings, sometimes referring to male homosexual interactions in general, sometimes to anal sex in general, and sometimes specifically to sex between men and boys. In academic usage the word has still a fourth meaning, referring specifically to the age-structured homosexual interactions practiced in classical Greece between older men and adolescent boys, and by extension to age-structured homosexual interactions in other cultures.

Lolita syndrome is sometimes used to refer to attraction to adolescent females. The term Lolicon is a corrupted abridgment of Lolita complex, it refers to manga-style pornography depicting neotonous female characters.

Nepiophilia, also called infantophilia, is the attraction to toddlers and infants (usually ages 0–3). Some researchers have suggested a distinction between pedophilia and nepiophilia, especially for same-sex pedophilia (see for example Bernard 1975, 1982; Lautmann 1994), as it is unusual for pedophiles to prefer toddlers. According to Howells 1981;[68] Bernard 1982;[59][69] McConaghy 1993;[70] Lautmann 1994,[71] male-oriented pedophilia more prevalently blends in with ephebophilia, while female-oriented pedophilia more prevalently blends in with nepiophilia.

Gerontophilia is the condition of being sexually attracted to the elderly.

The pedophile activism movement, referred to by some supporters as the childlove movement, is a social movement that encompasses a wide variety of views, but generally advocates one or more of the following: social acceptance of adults' romantic or sexual attraction to children; social acceptance of adults' sexual activity with children; and changes in institutions of concern to pedophiles, such as changing age-of-consent laws and mental illness classifications. The movement is extremely unpopular and has made little progress toward these goals. The most high profile pedophile activism group is NAMBLA. NAMBLA advocates the legalization of sexual relationships between men and boys.

↑Jones, G. (1990). "The Study of Intergenerational Intimacy in North America: Beyond Politics and Pedophilia," Journal of Homosexuality, 20(1-2), 288. "Intergenerational attraction on the part of some adults could constitute a lifestyle 'orientation', rather than a pathological maladjustment."

↑Goodburn, Elizabeth A., and Ross, David A. (1995). "A Picture of Health: A Review and Annotated Bibliography of the Health of Young People in Developing Countries." Published by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.